Why Pinterest is blocked by ACT Fibernet

ACT Fibernet spokesperson told ETtech that they have blocked Pinterest following a Madras High Court order from July last year to block a list of around 225 sitesVikas SN&Aritra Sarkhel | ETtech | April 18, 2017, 20:08 IST

We weren't able to access this site on an ACT Fibernet connection while other users have mentioned on Twitter that they are getting a note stating that the site has been blocked as per the instructions of the "competent government authority in compliance to the orders of Court of Law"

An ACT Fibernet spokesperson told ETtech that they have blocked Pinterest following a Madras High Court order from July last year to block a list of around 225 sites that includes "illegal download websites, unsuitable content sites, torrent sites and few forum sites".

"The order has been issued to all Internet Service Providers across India. The websites will remain blocked till we get further notification/order from the honourable High Court to activate these sites." the spokesperson said. We've reached out to Pinterest for a comment and will update once we hear back.

In July 2016, Madras High Court had directed 169 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in an interim order to block 225 "rogue websites indulging in online piracy and infringement of copyright", following movie producer Kalaipuli S Thanu's petition seeking to block access to these websites.

As per the judgement shared by ACT Fibernet, Pinterest is part of 225 "rogue websites" blocked to restrict any illegal downloads of Rajinikanth-starrer movie 'Kabali'. We weren't able to find the specific judgement at the time of writing this article.

Why Pinterest?

It's strange that Pinterest finds a mention in the list of 225 rogue websites, considering it is an online bulletin board and not a file sharing service or a video streaming service.

That said, there has been several unexplainable website blocks due to court orders in the country over the past few years. This includes Google's file sharing service Google Docs and its URL shortener goo.gl, popular Image sharing site Imgur, code sharing service Github, software repository Sourceforge, text sharing site Pastebin, sports news site Bleacher Report and domain reseller BuyDomains among others.

Hence, we believe there should be more transparency in how and why these blocks are instituted. There should also be some sort of recourse for website owners, in this case Pinterest, on how can they get the ban removed.